The Tempest: Grimoires, Alchemy, and the Making of Prospero’s Art
Release Date: 10/08/2025
Julius Caesar: Wrap Up
Shakespeare Anyone?
Want to support the podcast? or As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this wrap-up episode, we reflect on our exploration of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar by watching and discussing three distinct productions. We start with Phyllida Lloyd's ground-breaking 2012 all-female production at Donmar Warehouse, which sets the action of the play within a women's prison. Then, we explore The Bridge Theatre's 2018 production, directed by Nicholas Hytner and starring Ben Whishaw and Michelle Fairley, which combined dynamic staging with a contemporary...
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Mini: Shakespeare and Stephen King with Caroline Bicks, author of Monsters in the Archives
Shakespeare Anyone?
Want to support the podcast? or As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this episode, we are joined by author and Shakespeare scholar, Caroline Bicks, to discuss her latest book, . Caroline will share with us how Shakespeare some of Stephen King's most famous works, and the surprising similarities she discovered between Shakespeare's writing and King's. Monsters in the Archive: My Year of Fear with Stephen King is out now. About Caroline Bicks Caroline Bicks is the Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of...
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Julius Caesar: How Often Did Shakespeare Think About the Roman Empire?
Shakespeare Anyone?
Want to support the podcast? or As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this episode, we use Freyja Cox Jensen's Reading the Roman Republic in Early Modern England to explore how early modern readers encountered, studied, and understood ancient Rome, and what that means for how we read Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. First, we ask whether early modern people were truly obsessed with Julius Caesar and ancient Rome, and how Rome became so omnipresent in the early modern imagination. We then trace the roots of that obsession: how Roman history was...
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Mini: Ecological Shakespeare with Katherine Steele Brokaw
Shakespeare Anyone?
Want to support the podcast? or As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In anticipation of Earth Day and Shakespeare's birthday later this month, in this episode, we are joined by Katherine (Katie) Steele Brokaw to discuss how Shakespeare can be used as a tool to create conversations around ecological issues that impact our communities. We discuss how Shakespeare is already well-positioned to be used as an eco-playwright, why it is important to utilize his plays to speak to our current moment, and how theatremakers and educators can incorporate...
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Julius Caesar: A People's History Meets Shakespeare's Play
Shakespeare Anyone?
Want to support the podcast? or As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this episode, we bring together Michael Parenti's The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome and Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to explore the real historical event at the heart of the play. Parenti reframes the traditional "tyrannicide" narrative and argues that Caesar's murder was a calculated act by Rome's ruling oligarchs to stop a popular reformer who had become a threat to their wealth and power. Using this people's history perspective, we...
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Mini: Essex's Rebellion: The Plot Against Elizabeth I
Shakespeare Anyone?
Want to support the podcast? or As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this episode, we dig into one of the most dramatic scandals of Shakespeare's time: the rise and catastrophic fall of Robert Devereaux, the Earl of Essex. Court favorite, military hero, and ultimately, traitor, Essex had everything and managed to lose it spectacularly. We break down who Essex was, his relationship with Elizabeth, and what finally led him to march on London with a small bnad of followers and an extremely bad plan. And of course, we're a Shakespeare...
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Julius Caesar: The "Falling Sickness" and Shakespeare's Understanding of Epilepsy
Shakespeare Anyone?
Want to support the podcast? or As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In today's episode, we are exploring how Shakespeare depicts Julius Caesar's "falling sickness," commonly believed by historians and scholars to be epilepsy. First, we'll discuss how the play Julius Caesar can be read as a disability narrative and how it reflects early modern anxieties around invisible disabilities like epilepsy. Then, we will look at how Shakespeare depicts falling sickness or epilepsy across the canon and determine whether or not the depictions are as...
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Mini: Astrology in Shakespeare's Time
Shakespeare Anyone?
Want to support the podcast? or As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Cassius argues that "Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings." In this week's episode, we are exploring early modern ideas of fate and the stars and the practices and beliefs of astrology in Shakespeare's time. We'll discuss the difference between the early modern concepts of natural and judicial astrology, the popularity and influence of...
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Julius Caesar: Honor and Virtue of Brutus & Portia in Shakespeare's Play
Shakespeare Anyone?
Want to support the podcast? or As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In Julius Caesar, Shakespeare repeatedly reminds us that Brutus is an honorable man. In this episode we will explore if this is true, how Shakespeare depicts both masculine honor and its early modern counterpart, feminine virtue, in the characters of Brutus and Portia, and how Portia's characterization by editors and theatremakers has changed over time. First, we unpack how honor was defined for Shakespeare's audiences and how the play incorporates Early Modern anxieties...
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Julius Caesar: Stuff to Chew On
Shakespeare Anyone?
Want to support the podcast? or As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. As we start off another one of Shakespeare's plays, we will first take a look at the themes, motifs, and production history of Julius Caesar in this Stuff to Chew On episode. This will provide a basis for future conversations as we dive deeper in later episodes. Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp. Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander. For updates: Follow us on Instagram at Visit our website at Support the...
info_outlineWant to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you.
In this episode, we begin by exploring how Prospero’s magic in The Tempest reflects early modern grimoire traditions—a form of ritual magic rooted in books, incantations, and precise ceremonial practice, especailly as compared to the types of magic we discussed in our Macbeth episodes. We examine how Shakespeare's depiction of Prospero's art, Prospero's relationship with Ariel, and the creation and disappearance of the masque parallel descriptions of grimoire magical practices found in a grimoire manuscript from the late 1500s.
From there, we examine how The Tempest itself mirrors the alchemical process, moving through symbolic stages of separation, purification, and reconciliation. By tracing how the structure of the play parallels the alchemist’s pursuit of transformation, we uncover how Shakespeare weaves together the worlds of science, faith, and magic to create a story of power, renewal, and artful creation.
Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp.
Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander.
For updates: join our email list, follow us on Instagram at @shakespeareanyonepod or visit our website at shakespeareanyone.com
You can support the podcast by becoming a patron at patreon.com/shakespeareanyone, buying us coffee, or by shopping our bookshelves at bookshop.org/shop/shakespeareanyonepod (we earn a small commission when you use our link and shop bookshop.org).
Find additional links mentioned in the episode in our Linktree.
Works referenced:
Folger Shakesepeare Library. “Book of Magic, with Instructions for Invoking Spirits, Etc, ca. 1577-1583. [Manuscript].” Digital Collections, Folger Shakepeare Library, digitalcollections.folger.edu/bib228887-238418. Accessed 5 Oct. 2025.